Stay
by bandtogetherandfight
Summary: Rachel, Jesse, baby Bronwyn. Short, fluffy companion piece to my story Curtain Call.


STAY

_Companion piece to Curtain Call, but otherwise no idea where this came from. I am, quite literally, in the midst of finals and have been **trying** to avoid this, but the muse that is St. Berry keeps calling. I must answer. _

It still surprises her that, after all these years, she still gets jealous, but she has come to realize that the only thing that attracts women more than her husband, is her husband _with_ her daughter.

She hates the irony in that.

He laughs at her as she complains about it, because, what would she have him do? It's May and Bronwyn loves being outdoors. Their windowsill flower and vegetable garden, though their 10-month old loves to dig in it, hardly qualifies as fresh air and exercise, even she would have to admit.

The price they pay for Broadway and the city. Most times it's worth it.

She met them at the park this morning, after an interview to promote the new show. She hates those 'working mom guilt' questions that she is now plagued with. Don't these people realize that it's hard enough without having to explain it to the greater metropolitan area?

It's the same answer over and over. Her husband is amazingly supportive and being a mom is the greatest job in the world. The first part she has always known. Jesse still whispers things in her ear at night that he has prophesized are inevitable, and it still makes her heart beat quicken in the same way it did that first time in the McKinley high studio. The second part, she can't really remember a time she didn't know.

She doesn't want to.

Back at the park, Jesse is oblivious to the stares that he is getting from the other moms who sit gossiping and gawking at him on a nearby bench. Bronwyn is laughing as Jesse pushes her in the swing, and she is demanding that he go "Fast."

Rachel smiles to herself. She is proud to take full responsibility for her little girl's highly developed vocabulary, no matter how much her dads tease her about her loquaciousness growing up.

Almost automatically, she reaches for her camera phone, and through the frame that the lens provides, she allows herself to appreciate what the other mothers must be noticing. Jesse doesn't work out as much as he used to, but carting their almost 20-pound baby and all her accoutrement up three flights of stairs, not to mention all the running around they do now that she is mobile, probably provide just as much of a workout as his practices and rehearsals used to.

They both catch sight of her at about the same time, and Bron starts yelling for her to come and "Push." She leans down to give her daughter a kiss on the cheek before planting one on her father's lips, with a not so subtle tug on his shirt to drag him down to her level.

She feels Jesse smirk against her lips as he catches on. Bron is in the swing, facing away from both of them, so Jesse makes an impromptu show of it, running his hands down her back and squeezing her ass for a split second, in full view of their disapproving audience.

Bron impatiently kicks her legs against the swing and yells "Push" again, and Rachel complies.

She hears the volume pick up on the bench and, though she has never once doubted her chosen career, it's better than applause.

It's no surprise to either of them that as soon as she puts Bron down for a nap, he's unbuttoning her jeans and sliding his hand inside. Whatever worries she had had about their sex life after the baby had disappeared three weeks after she was born.

(Don't tell her doctor.)

Bron wakes all of them after her nap and Jesse brings her into bed with him so that they can watch Rachel get ready to go to rehearsal. He's got one eye on the baby and the other on her. When she comes near to him to grab her earrings off the night table, he grabs her wrist, links fingers with hers, and tells her to "Stay."

It's half-hearted. Both of them know she has to go do what she was born to do, and the show opens in two weeks. Sometimes, though, she can't help but feel guilty, that he is not right next to her on stage anymore, that only one of them can live out their dreams at a time.

Bron gurgles happily to her stuffed monkey, and both of them smile, the guilt and the loneliness both forgotten. Rachel sits back down on the bed for the five minutes she has left, tickling Bronwyn and making the monkey noises she had been surprised to learn she was an expert at.

She stands back up and leans down to kiss them each one last time.

"Stay."

But this time it comes from her daughter and not from her husband. Tears fill her eyes at the same time that Jesse shoots her an apologetic look. Bron has never said that particular word before.

As if it wasn't already hard enough to leave the house.

Bronwyn doesn't seem to catch on to the emotional sledgehammer she just hit her mother with because the next words out of her mouth are "Bye bye," ones that Rachel is used to and greatly prefers, because they are often accompanied with a smile, cute wave or an air kiss goodbye.

Jesse, sensing a breakdown, takes charge of the situation, grabbing his daughter and announcing to both his girls that they were "Walking mommy to the theater today."

It's not the first time, and it won't be the last.

He's fussing with the stroller when she finally makes it to the living room. She leans up to kiss him, grabbing his ass like he had done to her hours earlier on the playground.

This time there is no show; no audience. Those other moms still have plenty reason to be jealous, however.

__


End file.
